Dark Samus (Clash)
Dark Samus is an unlockable playable character in Super Smash Bros. Clash. She is a creature composed of Phazon and DNA from the Metroid Prime and Samus. She serves at the primary antagonist of the Metroid Prime saga of the Metroid series. She enters the Dark Tournament to use Master Hand's power to corrupt the Smash Bros. world into serving her, starting with her "sister". Dark Samus is really nothing like her good counterpart gameplay wise. She's a bit of an oddball who can be played in a wide variety of ways although Dark Samus is best at playing the guessing game and just being an annoying pest for people who don't have answers to her attacks. Means of Unlocking Pros & Cons Dark Samus is a pretty unique character. Dark Samus at first looks like your standard glass cannon; some speed, great power and doesn't last long. While this is true to some extent, Dark Samus isn't quite your standard rushdown character. She has a decent set of defensive normals and specials, plus she has a ton of attacks with properties no other move in the game has. Dark Samus's strongest point is probably guessing games and mix-ups. Between being a mostly rushdown character with solid defense, amazing up / side specials for mix-ups and a fantastic Final Smash 2 there are several ways a Dark Samus player can keep an opponent in an endless game of "What's NEXT?". Dark Samus also hits really hard, has the hands down most useful Down Strong in Clash a ton of ways to capitalize on tech chases and knockdowns and has a lot of high priority attacks. Dark Samus is large and frail which is never a good combination, if the tier list position of the other villainous Metroid character is any indication. She also has several unsafe attacks and is a risky character; people who know how to deal with her mix-ups properly are going to capitalize big. Her combo game isn't fantastic without a Final Smash and some of Dark Samus's attacks just aren't that useful in a match. Dark Samus is a really unique character with a lot of things that come in handy against every character. She can give everyone major problems if played correctly, but a good player needs to be adjusting their game heavily if someone does know how to fight against her. A Dark Samus player should know a lot about the character, even more than playing as other's, if they want to be good but it is very worth it. And then, you'll have the whole world corrupted... Pros *Has a lot of ways to play with the opponents head *Exceptional defensive game *She has some really strong moves *Final Smash 2 allows for ridiculous combos; some capable of killing cast members from 0% *Dark Samus has really high priority attacks *Excellent at hitting opponents vulnerable to OTG attacks from anywhere on the screen Cons *Large, light target. *Most of what Dark Samus does is not safe if the opponent sees it coming, meaning you cannot afford to be predictable. *She has some really hard moves to work well with. *She needs Final Smash 2 to really be a huge combo threat *Recovery isn't great *Has some problems with characters who can overpower her defensively and have alright offensive, such as Mega Man and Mewtwo. Moveset Ground Moves Normals *Neutral Attack: Dark Samus stretches her arm forward slightly for an attack with her arm, then leans forward a bit more to attack with a longer ranged arm attack. It has pretty good range and priority for a jab, but it has a bit more recovery time and start-up time (7 frames). The second hit has low knockback and fairly good hitstun for a jab letting you link several things from it at most percents; a pretty useful feature. **Damage: 4% first hit, 5% second hit, 9% total *Side Strong Attack: Dark Samus spins around and does a backfist, the backfist being her arm cannon. Can be angled up or down, the up version being the strongest but lowest priority, down being weaker but better priority and the straight version a mix of the two. All three versions have mediocre priority (that means don't use the up version as anti-air) and good knockback (Up KOing Mario around 145%) though. This starts up fast (7 frames, same speed as your jab), recovers quickly and has GREAT range on it so you may find use for it as a poke. If you want to go that route always use the downward version as the other two frequently whiff against smaller standing and several crouching characters. There are some matches this attack can be great in (such as versus Captain Falcon) and others it's terrible in, so know how to use this against everyone. **Damage: 12% up, 11% side, 10% down *Up Strong Attack: Dark Samus points her arm cannon upwards and spins it around. Will hit 3 times. Only 4 frames of start-up but an incredible amount of recovery; at low percents this is unsafe on hit against several characters; most notably grapplers and some heavy offensive characters. Emphasis on the "low percents" part however since the knockback is pretty high for a tilt, KOing around 120% and having good knockback growth. It also has high priority and is good to hit people who are right above you with something like a down aerial. Decent but risky attack. **Damage: 4% per hit for up to 12% *Down Strong Attack: Dark Samus shoots her arm cannon at the ground and creates a small puddle of phazon energy. Can hit up to 5 times and does chip damage. This puddle of phazon energy lasts 5 seconds and will absorb 0 priority or weaker projectiles. If someone does step foot in your puddle they are locked in it for a bit and this even allows you to juggle with more Down Strongs or other attacks. It automatically disappears if Dark Samus uses this attack again, Phazon Crystal or Hyper Phazon Crystal. This move provides Dark Samus with a very powerful space control option and option for fireball war domination when combined with her stellar Phazon Beam. For defensive Dark Samus players this is a very powerful tool against people who like to use dashes or downward air dashes to approach you and offensive ones will enjoy the juggling ability. A really good attack and one of the best down strongs in the game. **Damage: 2% for each of the five hits (10% total); up to 2% chip damage *Dash Attack: Dark Samus stops dashing for a bit, then leans back and does a sliding attack. This move has HUGE range at nearly a fifty of Final Destination distance. It also has extremely high priority, with most characters only having a couple moves in there arsenal that trade or beat it. The knockback is also pretty good to make it an unexpected KO move. However, the ending lag on this attack is really, REALLY bad leaving your foe with nearly a second to counter it when blocked without a perfect shield. It also comes with the standard dash attack negatives of having limited combo ability and being easy to see coming. The start-up isn't bad though and combined with the other positive aspects of it this can be an alright move. Just don't be predictable with it or you are going to get punished. **Damage: 14% Smash Attacks *Side Smash Attack: Dark Samus blasts an explosion of phazon energy out of her arm cannon. Can be angled; which direction does not matter but the down version can hit OTG. This move is a very high priority and extremely powerful attack: It's capable KOing Bowser at 68% at full charge and almost every character in the game below 100% uncharged. It also doesn't have terrible start-up at 13 frames, although you may have some problems trying to stick this in at the end of a long combo. The recovery time is really, really bad and it also has fairly short shieldstun for an attack like this which makes this really easy to punish if your foe has defense against it. You really cannot ignore that power. **Damage: 24% (uncharged), 33% (charged) *Up Smash Attack: Dark Samus spins on her head and performs a drilling kick upwards. This has a vacuum effect allowing you to suck in characters from a distance. This move is the slowest of Dark Samus's Smashes at 17 frames start-up but it has the fastest recovery and longest shieldstun. Although it does recover quickly and launches the opponent decently for more juggles, the large amount of hits (9) makes combos off this very short due to hitstun scaling. The knockback at higher percents is pretty good and it can be a reliable killer, although Dark Samus has better options. **Damage... ***Uncharged: 1.8% per hit for first seven hits, 2% for eighth, 3% for final, 17.6% (rounded to 18% in-game) total damage ***Charged: 2.4% per hit for first seven hits, 2.9% for eighth, 4% for final, 23.7% (rounded to 24% in-game) total damage *Down Smash Attack: Dark Samus pounds the ground to create a quake of phazon that hits on both sides of her body for decent vertical knockback. By far Dark Samus's fastest (3 frames start-up) ground and Smash Attack with recovery and shieldstun inbetween that of the Side and Up Smashes. It does push the opponent a decent deal away from you and has good base knockback for a down smash. The knockback growth is really bad though, KOing middleweights around 130% uncharged which isn't great for a Down Smash. You can use the large hitbox and speed to make this a pretty good anti-air, spacing attack and way of giving Dark Samus some breathing room though, so you're probably going to be using this more as a defensive move than an offensive one. Defensive Dark Samus players should have a field day with this attack. **Damage: 14% (uncharged), 19% (charged) Aerial Moves *Neutral Aerial: Dark Samus curls into a spiky ball. This move has a huge amount of active frames; 137 of them which adds to over two seconds. Recovery, ending and start-up lag are all short. The initial priority is very strong although during the last 15 or so frames it becomes pathetic. This is another defensive Dark Samus normal for stopping approaches and getting yourself some breathing room although it itself is good for approaching if you want to use it as an offensive attack. Pretty good stuff. Just make sure you don't use it while you're recovering. **Damage: 10% during active frames 1-20, 9% during 21-37, 8% during 38-53, 7% during 54-69, 6% during 70-81, 5% during 82-118, 4% during 119-135, 3% during 136, 1% during 137 *Forward Aerial: Dark Samus shoots a phazon beam out of her Arm Cannon that hits for physical damage. This is similar to Mewtwo's Up Aerial and Fawful's Down Aerial, although in a different direction. Performing this move with up-forward gets you to fire the beam at a 45 degree angle upward, down-forward is similar but downwards, and just plain forward gets you just plain forward of course. Each version also adjusts the knockback direction slightly. Hitting with this REALLY close to the arm with the down version only turns it into a semi-spike. As for actual stats on this, it isn't too slow and has alright recovery but has heavy landing lag. The knockback is pretty good and the range is great. This can actually be pretty good as a finishing move for when Dark Samus is airborne; probably your most reliable air killer. **Damage: 14%, 15% down version sweetspot *Back Aerial: Dark Samus disappears into a blank space briefly then strikes with a shadow kick. Like Marth's back aerial this actually turns Dark Samus around so it can be good for when you're airborne and need to adjust yourself to connect with an appropriate side aerial afterward. The knockback is higher than the forward aerial, but only slightly and it loses out dearly on priority and range. However it's faster and good if you need just that one bit of knockback for the knockout. Also good is that if you screw up the auto-cancel on it the landing lag is short. **Damage: 14% *Up Aerial: Dark Samus flips herself over and attacks with a slicing up kick. Starts up quickly has good vertical range and has alright priority although it isn't a very strong or quick to end attack. It can work alright in some juggles, but isn't really all that notable of a move. **Damage: 12% *Down Aerial: Dark Samus curls into a spiky ball and heads straight into the ground, then bounces off for a spinning attack. Can not be canceled into special attacks or a Clash Attack. This attack will only finish if it hits ground; you are doomed if you have no ground below you. The start-up on this move is almost instant and is Dark Samus's only Meteor Smash, although tricky to use as one. The last hit of the spinning bounce has great knockback and can be followed up from against some characters at low percents and the attack in general works well to get yourself back to the ground safely. If all hits of the bounce connect on a shield it's safe, but some characters can duck under it to avoid the troubles to begin with. A pretty risky attack that takes a lot of time to know how to use properly. **Damage: First hit does 8%, and the spinning attack does 5 2% hits for a total of 18% Grabs and Throws *Grab: Dark Samus doesn't have a grapple beam like her good counterpart. It has great range for a close grab though, having almost as much range as Donkey Kong's. Pivot is really bad and the dash grab isn't very good either so always stick to the standard grab. *Pummel: Dark Samus hooks the foe's gut. Slow but good damage. **Damage: 3% *Forward Throw: Dark Samus pulls the foe in front of her and blasts them with a phazon blast. Low, set knockback but can be used to start OTG combos and semi-spikes if the opponent doesn't land on the stage. **Damage: 10% *Back Throw: Basically the Forward Throw animation except backwards. It also has stronger knockback, but cannot be used as an OTG combo starter. **Damage: 10% *Up Throw: Dark Samus grabs the foe with her arm cannon and blasts them up with a beam attack. High vertical knockback, decent killer. **Damage: 11% *Down Throw: Dark Samus tosses the foe into the ground then creates a clone of herself. Both of them then stomp on the target. Unfortunately the cooldown time for Dark Samus prevents almost any follow-up but this is your most damaging throw. **Damage: 2 hits for 7% each, 14% total *Air Throw: Dark Samus grabs the foe with her normal arm and forces them down with a palm phazon blast. Semi-spikes and has good range; Dark Samus has a pretty useful air throw for edgeguarding. **Damage: 10% Special and Super Moves Standard Special Move: Phazon Beam Dark Samus's projectile, and one of the only non-super based beam attacks in Clash. This has Dark Samus fire a thick beam of phazon energy that travels a little longer than Final Destination distance. When done in the air it fires at a 45 degree angle downwards. This isn't the best projectile in terms of start-up at 25 frames, but it does recover pretty quickly and tends to work very well against other projectiles due to it's increased priority (1 projectile priority, enough to beat a huge number of stuff). You can combo into it off a couple canceled attacks but Dark Samus has better options for that. The ground version is obviously a keep away / zoning tool and your main way of combating heavy defensive play from a distance. It's great to use against almost everyone who lacks a good projectile punish, namely the grapplers who unsurprisingly have hell dealing with this. The air version is OTG capable, so if you're far too high into the sky to follow up your air throw with anything else this is good to hit the other fighter with. It also leaves Dark Samus floating for the first air use; all air uses after the first have Dark Samus fall normally. That former factor allows you to stop some slower anti-air attempts which is pretty handy. A handy move. This attack does 4 hits, each doing 3%. Total possible damage is 12%. The second and fourth hits do 1% chip. Side Special Move: Dark Echo *Doesn't build any Clash Attack Meter This move makes Dark Samus create two (ground version, one left and one right) or four (one left, one right, one up and one down) illusions of herself. After this happens, tap the control stick to determine which of the illusions is the real, physically damage-able Dark Samus. Dark Samus is invincible while she is creating illusions, but not after they have been made. Does not leave Dark Samus in helpless state when used and finished in the air, but you can't do specials after using this once in the air. Anyone who touches the illusions will be frozen for about 8 frames by the illusion. Illusions stay on screen for about 5 seconds if they are left untouched. Dark Samus's mind game and mix-up move. The illusions work really well to bait punishes and other random attacks from the other fighter allowing you to hit them while they're hitting a fake target. The real Dark Samus is very vulnerable, so if they do manage to guess properly you're in for a world of hurt. Obviously the key to using this is to not be predictable and also not to be predictable with what you do AFTER making illusions if the foe doesn't risk attacking an illusion. If you know what you're doing with this then it can be a really daunting task to fight a Dark Samus player. Up Special Move: Phazon Warp This is Dark Samus's 8-direction teleport. It goes a decent distance but doesn't recover as quickly as Mewtwo or Kyle Hyde's teleports. You're mostly going to be using this as a fairly effective recovery move. Dark Echo is arguably better offensively since the recovery on this isn't fantastic and that attack sets up huge mindgames. This can be used as sort of an alternate with less risk for a correct guess on the opponent's part. Down Special Move: Prime Crystal *Ground only; cannot be done in the air Dark Samus drills her arm cannon into the ground and surrounds herself with two massive, dark blue crystals that reach to a bit more than Ridley's height. These last for about 10 seconds and disappear if Dark Samus uses the move again. This is a bit similar to Ganondorf's standard special, but it's also quite a bit different. This move is a really fast one with some (4 frames) start up invincibility. When the crystals initially pop out they do insane knockback and damage for the speed they arrive at (6 frames) and work really well as an anti-air or as a strong vertical finisher. Note that unlike Dark Samus's Down Smash, these crystals do not actually appear right next to Dark Samus so at point blank range he pop will actually whiff and the opponent has a huge amount of time to punish Dark Samus. The recovery time on this is massive at almost 3 seconds although the crystals will stay on screen for a bit longer than that. It's a risky but highly rewarding defensive attack. It can be hard to utilize safely, but it's still good regardless. The initial crystal pop does 16% with 4% chip. Frozen hits deal 3% with no knockback or chip. Clash Attack: Aurora Prime Spear *Consumes 1 bar of Dark Samus's Clash Attack Meter. *Done with Down, Down + Special + Attack. *Ground only; cannot be done in the air Dark Samus hops off the ground and breaches her hands back, which somehow summons 5 huge icey spikes similar to her Down Special ones; just stronger and larger. This is a rare OTG hitting Clash Attack. If you can predict a landed tech chase properly this is going to be a huge reward for you as well as a guaranteed big reward if you land an air throw. This is also fast enough to utilize in a basic combo for big damage and usually pushes the opponent to far away for them to heavily punish Dark Samus. Not to mention the ice spikes have massive vertical range; not as good as Thunder's but it's up there. It's generally not a good idea to use this from long range as not a lot of the hits are going to connect and it also doesn't have enough projectile priority to beat some other projectile supers, namely Shinku Hadoken. Each spike does 8% damage and 2% chip. That totals to 10% chip and 40% damage. Final Smash 1: Sphere Prime *Requires at least half her Super Smash Meter to be filled. *Done with Down, Down Back, Back + Special + Attack. Dark Samus floats into the sky and covers herself in a massive blue sphere of phazon. After a couple of seconds the sphere explodes and fires 16 purple shots in various directions; 4 cardinals, 4 diagonals and 8 in between each cardinal and diagonal (meaning you'd have one inbetween the North and Northeast shots, etc.) Fairly fast start-up on this attack plus it has a massive amount of invincibility. It doesn't deal a lot of damage or knockback for a Final Smash unless some of the purple shots hit which obviously is no guarantee given how easy it is to control the DI. You can combo into this attack, but it's probably better more as a defensive tool than an offensive one since it's fairly safe (... for a Final Smash at least) on block and is very hard to punish with other projectile Final Smashes. This attack does 30 hits for a total of 81-58%, depending on how much the Super Smash Meter was charged. It deals 9-13% in chip damage. Each purple shot, regardless of meter charge, does 14% without any chip. Final Smash 2: Corruption Echo *Requires her entire Super Smash Meter to be charged. *Done with Down, Down Forward, Forward + Special + Attack. *Dark Samus creates three Dark Echoes of herself to fight alongside her for 10 seconds. *Dark Samus cannot perform Dark Echo during this attack's duration. Inputting the motion for it does something... special. A custom combo Final Smash that reduces the start-up and recovery of all of Dark Samus's attacks by a frame or two. Dark Samus's Dark Echoes during this attack will mimic everything the real Dark Samus does on the opponent with some exceptions (they can't shield or grab for one thing). This allows you to do some really crazy things like send an opponent flying with a Back Aerial and your clones will automatically jump over to edgeguard them with a Back Aerial. The catch is that in this type of situation, if a dark echo is hit all the dark echoes disappear and this Final Smash ends just like that so you can't just go into something like that blindly. It cannot be stated enough how good this is for an offensive Dark Samus player. It sets up some really insane combo opportunities and allows for some moves to be easily comboed into despite limitations from being used in regular combos. It's probably possible to do some 0-death combos on many cast members with this. Inputting a side direction and Special Attack actually gets you Dark Samus's real Final Smash 2, the Aurora Corruption. This has all the Dark Echoes dash and home in onto all opponents while Dark Samus charges a powerful attack. Said powerful attack is a much stronger version of the purple shot the Final Smash 1 explosion makes. Dark Samus will fire one at all opponents the Echoes managed to hold onto for her. This has a lot of start-up on it and instantly ends Corruption Echo regardless of whether it hits or not, but at least it is really damaging and can be comboed into in a few ways. This does 100% with 15% chip. This is a really good offensive Final Smash and probably the one most Dark Samus users will be taking. Other Taunts and Victory Poses On-screen appearance In The Dark Tournament: Adventure Mode Competitive Tactics and Advice Match-ups Advanced techniques Costume Colors Trophies and Profile information Challenge Wall rewards Trivia External links Category: Characters (Clash) Category: Metroid universe